The wreck...the car or me?

Oh man it's been a long time ago that this all happened, but it is what brings us to the present so I thought I better share my bittersweet story.

So in 2001 when I graduated with my RN from Rick's College's last nursing class, I got my first real job and started to work.  In August of that year, I decided that it was time to buy my own vehicle.  The first I had ever bought.   I never dreamed that I'd buy a brand new car, but I found a great deal on a nice car and couldn't resist.  So I splurged and bought it, thinking I'll never get this lucky.  I might as well spoil myself now cause I won't get to later with a family.  So I bought my dream car.  A brand new Honda Accord.  It was a peppy 4 cylinder auto with leather and a sunroof, and can I say, got great gas mileage.  I'll have to look for the picture that I have the morning that I took it home.  I really looked awful, cause I worked the previous 12 hour night shift at EIRMC, but never the less, I was pretty excited.  So over the years I have come to be quite attached to my car and Chad teases me about my "Supreme vehicle".  Okay I really did call it that...I know cheesy, but I really loved it.

Well my mom and dad came over Conference weekend and stayed to help watch Kherrington while I worked.  My dad has really gotten into fishing the last several years.  So on the first trip to Pullman, he took us down to the locks and the dam near Boyer park.  It was a nice little drive, but I can't remember why we couldn't really see it.  The timing wasn't right is all that I remember.  But since then he'd gone down there and got the meet the fish counters.  There is a big observation window that people sit and count fish to get numbers.  I guess it's a fish and game thing, anyway, my dad wanted to take my mom to see it.  And on their way back to our house on Friday, October 2nd, my dad got in a collision in my car at highway 195 and Wawawaii Rd.  Not even 5 miles away from our house.   We were lucky though.  No one was hurt and the person just took off my back bumper as my dad was trying to cross the highway.

Yeah so my bumper is in the scrap yard above.  I took it to Myer's Autobody and rebuild.  (Which I strongly suggest if someone needs work done on a car in Pullman.  We've used them for a few things, all things that have happened to Chad's car and none of those were our fault).  And when Steve was doing the evaluation he told be that I shouldn't be driving the car, which I hadn't been, just to the repair place from my house. Well turns out that the entire rear end of my car had been shifted to the left and it even bent the frame.  Several days later I found out that my car was totaled. :(  You can imagine that I was devastated.  I even cried when Chad took me to gather all my personal things out of the car.  I know stupid!  It's just a car.  I  had to keep telling myself that.  But as Chad put it, "It was more than just a car to you."

Here you can see the gap when the trunk was closed.

  So we really ended up finding out that it was totaled while we were in SE Idaho for Chad's rotation in Blackfoot.  Some of you know that I always said that my next vehicle would be a Honda Pilot. I had been debating buying one before we even had Kherrington.  I had done lots of researching on them and other mid sized SUV's and I decided that it would be the perfect family car, so that I wouldn't have to be a mini van mom.  To all those mini van moms out there, I have an aunt that swears by them, and I can see some advantages to them, but overall, I wanted something 4 wheel drive.  So then Chad and I were stressing about finding another vehicle, cause we've been lucky enough to each have come to our marriage with a vehicle all paid off.  I know we're lucky.  And we decided that the running around was pretty annoying.  I admire all you that do it.

Well we did test drive a 2007 Pilot, but it had 75,000 miles.  We loved how it drove, but didn't like the color so much.   It's called Aberdeen Green.  It was starting to grow on me, but Chad was not budging.  Which was a good thing it had too many miles.  So we continued our search.....only to find very few used Pilots for sale that were anywhere close to SE Idaho or Spokane.

We were really starting to worry, but it all worked out.  My parent's had been looking for another Accord and found a really nice one.  And the nicest thing was.....They let us take it with us to use as our vehicle until we could find a Pilot with what we needed. The other thing is that they paid for our deductible, which we had full coverage on our vehicle do to my laziness of changing it.  Thank Heavens So this is what we brought back to Pullman with us.

Now this isn't the actual one, but it looked just like it.  Charcoal Gray, almost black with nice dark tinted windows (Nice thing to have when one is pumping breast milk on a trip to and from Idaho) .  It is an EX, so it had the sunroof, and it had gray interior, which is my favorite, but my Mom isn't a huge leather fan and this one had cloth interior.  It even had a place to plug your ipod into it. I also loved all the cup holders. 4 just for the front seats.  It came in handy for traveling.  We really enjoyed this car.  But when we came back down to SE Idaho I got a call from Al Vaalemoen from Smith's asking if we'd bought a Pilot yet, cause he had one to show us.  So we went and test drove another 2007 Pilot with only 28,000 miles, tow package, heated front seats, defrosters for the side mirrors, seats for 8, and a DVD player!!  Oh yes my friends, everything that I would put on my dream Pilot!!  And that day we drove home in our new/used Pilot.

Okay so this sounds all wonderful, but while we were negotiating, I ended up in tears, cause I was so afraid I'd just signed something that would push us out of our budget.  Yeah I was totally bawling, tears coming down the cheeks and everything.  I really have enjoyed my time staying home with Kherrington and I didn't want to have to put in more hours at work because we bought another vehicle.  This was the entire reason I had thought about buying the vehicle before we had her.  So I could get it paid off sooner without leaving a little one at a babysitters.  But I do appreciate Al for keeping us in mind and getting us everything that we wanted.  I do have to give it to him for that.

Not actually a picture of ours, but looks just like it!!

So even though it doesn't get the gas mileage it states 23-25 mpg, it does get 20 and that's not bad for the SUV's of this size.  And we're loving it!!